A Blackbird Singing: full throated beauty.

This poem by RS Thomas captures this alchemy of joy and sorrow – the heart opening depth of the evening.

It seems wrong that out of this bird,

Black, bold, a suggestion of dark

Places about it, there yet should come

Such rich music, although the notes’

Ore were changed to rare metal

At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often alone at your desk,

In a green April, your mind drawn

Away from its work by sweet disturbance,

Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase

With history’s overtones, love, joy

And grief learned by his dark tribe

In other orchards and passed on

Instinctively as they are now,

But fresh always with new tears.

RS Thomas